Pop Idol: Was it a fix?

Questions were raised about the result of Pop Idol yesterday after it emerged that tens of thousands of fans were prevented from voting for Gareth Gates.

A telecom engineer suggested that 21,300 phone lines had been open for callers to vote for eventual winner Will Young, but only 4,900 were allocated to 17-year-old Gareth.

Although ITV insisted last night that the vote had been fair, a telecom meltdown caused by technical glitches has cast a shadow over the climax of the show.

Tens of thousands of disappointed fans were unable to get through to Gareth's number - ending 005 - while Will's number - ending 004 - had no such difficulties reported.

A telecom engineer on duty on Saturday evening claimed Gareth was destined to miss out because when his lines jammed within minutes of the vote opening, workers were ordered not to clear the backlog.

The engineer, who works for Cable and Wireless, which provided the lines in conjunction with BT, said this explained why so many callers had found Gareth's number engaged.

'The 04 number had such an allocation that it would never be jammed,' he said. 'The 05 was always going to be jammed. One had 21,300 lines and the other only had 4,900.

'Therefore the 05 number instantly became jammed, but we couldn't understand why we couldn't re-route through other lines. We were actually told not to.

'It was obviously designed to jam up one number.

'Both lines were busy, but there was greater capacity on the 04 line, whereas the other line was totally and utterly jammed.

'From my reading of it, it was fixed - I can't see any other reason for it.'

Although telecom companies and ITV were flooded with complaints about the difficulty in getting through, an astonishing 8.7million viewers did manage to vote - 4.6million for Will and 4.1million for Gareth.

The result was a major surprise as Gareth had been the strong favourite through the final stages of the competition.

Many industry insiders believe the teenager's severe stammer was deemed a potential problem for his publicity commitments and personal appearances should he have won.

Dozens of viewers contacted the Daily Mail over the weekend to voice their anger at the voting problems.

Penny Winship, from Stoke-on-Trent, said: 'I tried from the minute the lines opened to the minute they closed to vote for Gareth, but they were permanently engaged.

'Afterwards I had no dialling tone and when I reported it I was told the lines had been gridlocked.

'The operator told me that everyone who had called to complain was voting for Gareth.

'It made me wonder if it was a true representation of how people felt.'

Margaret Tate, from Wakefield, West Yorkshire, said: 'The phone companies couldn't cope so how can they say for certain that Will has won?

'Without accumulating the results properly, it's totally unfair.'

ITV and the phone companies denied that there had been anything sinister in the voting problems.

A spokesman for Pop Idol said: 'The lines are not allocated to one number or other, calls are put through to whichever line is free, regardless of the number dialled.'

A spokesman for ITV, however, came up with a different explanation of the voting technology, saying: 'There were 28,000 lines and they were evenly split.'

Telecom giant NTL insisted the problem had been due to the volume of callers. 'Millions of people were trying to get through and many got engaged tones,' said a spokesman.

'There wasn't a specific problem with specific lines, just a lot of people calling at the same time.

'We put on extra capacity to handle the calls but not everybody got through.'

BT said the allocation of phone lines was not its responsibility.

'The organisers of a big phone vote such as this specify exactly what they want and precisely how they want it, and we do as they ask,' said a spokesman.

'If any changes are made, it's not down to us.' Cable and Wireless was unavailable for comment.